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Tim Agne is a stay-at-home dad, trophy husband, writer and sometimes teacher in Phoenix, Arzona. He used to be an online producer for daily newspapers, where he played videogame critic, movie podcaster, energy-drink reviewer, social-media expert. Currently he is clean-shaven. Read more »

Category: Off-topic

If you’re like me, you’re up late watching CNN coverage of the 2016 election. You’ve finished your most on-the-nose strong beer (in my case a 32-ounce can of Arizona Wilderness American Presidential Stout). You should go to bed, but you can’t stop fretting over the future of this country.

I was selfish. I was arrogant. I willfully contributed to an environmental and public-health crisis that is putting my children, your children, everyone at risk. All I can say is I’m sorry, I’ve changed, and I’ll do my best to make this right.

I’m talking about antibacterial soap. Chemicals like triclosan and triclocarban have contributed to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. They’re known endocrine disruptors that our babies wind up consuming in breast milk. They’re contaminating our water supply.

The state of Minnesota has banned triclosan, and the FDA is mulling a national ban on antibacterial soap (big update on this below). For more on the problem, check out this article from Arizona State University (go Devils).

Podcasts are a big stay-at-home dad life hack. They provide hours of free, portable entertainment. They get me through the dishes and fulfill my oft-neglected need to hear only adults talking.

Some friends of mine have a world-renowned podcast with hundreds of episodes and many thousands of listeners. I don’t often listen because it’s about professional wrestling. But the good folks at The Steel Cage have invited me to appear on two of their off-topic episodes, better known as the Unfunny Nerd Tangent.

In the fall of 2003, a panel of Arizona State University staff asked me what I wanted my legacy to be at ASU. I told them I wanted future students to read my school-newspaper columns and think, “That guy got it right.”

The panel didn’t appoint me to homecoming court, and I’ve always blamed that dumb answer. My journalism career quickly beat into me the idea that nobody cares about old opinion pieces.

I’m pretty sure tortillas have been on the blacklist since I was in school, and this year ASU is cracking down on kegs and drinking games at tailgates. No “shot gunning,” a tailgating activity so familiar to me that I would have written it as one word.

See, the point of throwing tortillas at football games in 2002 was to carry on a tradition. That’s probably why I shotgun the occasional beer at tailgates. Thinking these activities are misguided doesn’t make you a fascist.

But the fun police need to appreciate that all these little things add up to a legacy of fandom. Fourteen years of these shenanigans have made me a bigger fan of ASU football than any other sport.

I want my kids to be as passionate about ASU football as I am. I realize that my debauched traditions are slowly giving way to more family-friendly activities. In time, though, the kids will come up with their own wild stuff. That’s a legacy.